Format: ORAL

Izadora Kervin1(izadora.kervin@plymouth.ac.uk), Jennifer Rowntree1, Scott J. Davidson1 and Neil Bell2

1. School of Biological and Marine Sciences (Faculty of Science and Engineering), University of Plymouth, Devon, UK 2. Royal Botanical Gardens Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland

An estimated one-fifth of all botanical species are at risk of extinction with the most vulnerable of these species being bryophytes. This is due to them being poikilohydric, causing bryophytes to be sensitive to changes in the environment. Translocation and reintroduction practices can be used to help reintroduce species into their native ranges, and ultimately help reduce the risk of extinction. However, currently there are no available guidelines specifically tailored towards the translocation and reintroduction of bryophyte species. We undertook a systematic review to advance our understanding of successful translocation and reintroduction projects. Using a standardised methodology, we systematically searched literature databases for articles on bryophyte translocations. The academic papers were filtered to 144 relevant articles (WoS = 138, EthOs = 4, ProQuest = 1, and Scorpus = 1), in which the subject and focus were assessed. From the remaining literature the estimated location of the translocation, distance transferred, reason for translocation, bryophyte species, duration of experiments and transplant method were extracted. The results show that most transplant experiments are for biomonitoring projects, with very little literature dealing with bryophyte transplants for conservation efforts. Most of these studies are short-term experiments with very limited long-term translocation projects. There were also disparities between bryophyte species utilised, for example, out of the 144 journal articles there was a total of 133 bryophyte species, of which 82.7% were moss species and only 17.3% were liverworts (4.7x more moss species compared to liverworts). This suggests that liverwort species are underrepresented within translocation and reintroduction experiments. This systematic review has highlighted a research gap in the frequency of academic papers focusing on conservation-based translocation experiments. To speed up bryophyte conservation we need to focus on increasing research efforts for translocations and reintroduction projects. Furthermore, we need to develop standardized guidelines for bryophyte reintroduction and translocations.